HylaBrook's Blog

Raised beds using Frame-It-All system
Apr 16, 2008 | 9:57 PM PST
Tags: raised beds , Frame-It-All , cedar 2x6 boards

Everyone knows the value of raising garden beds to increase productivity of vegetable gardens. And everyone knows there are many ways to build raised beds at various costs and with various aesthetic appeal. Quite frankly, I have seen beautiful tailored poured cement beds, stacked stone walls around beds, beds made of just mounded soil, and beds made from scrap lumber and stakes. All worked fine. Some would fit nicely into rural settings, some in urban. My problem was what to do in my cookie-cutter suburban neighborhood that would meet the neighbor's expectations without breaking my back or my bank account. I found the Frame-It-All concept appealing, though I was concerned about the cost of their composite engineered planks for the side boards. I figured cedar 2x6's would fit the brackets, would both look good for years and would meet my organic gardening requirements at half the cash outlay for the composite planks.

I decided to use 2x6 cedar planks 4' long. I ordered 44 of 8 footers along with some other lumber for the base of the plastic shed and had it delivered. I though Scooter could easily and quickly cut the 8' planks in half. Turns out Scooter is not that handy. He cut 12 of the planks, then insisted that I had to use them up before he would cut more. That was in November.

Two weeks ago we spent a day fitting the plastic brackets onto the planks. We got an assembly line going and banged them out pretty quickly. Then I commenced stacking the planks and laying out the beds. I found they would not fit together. That is when I discovered that the planks were different lengths from 47 3/4" to 48 1/2" long. That does not even make mathematical sense. Shouldn't it be 47 1/2" to 48 1/2"? Back to the drawing board. Scooter spent a week engineering a jig for spacing the brackets on the shorter planks. So I removed one bracket from one end of each plank and Scooter went to work on them. Sure enough, that did not work out perfectly either. Seems his jig had a little wiggle room in four places that added up to 3/16" of difference, out of the tolerances allowed by the angle brackets. I had to remove the two screws from those brackets. The cedar planks fit pretty snugly into the brackets, so I think it will hold until I can get out there and re-insert the screws. Scooter is still working on the jig for cutting the excess off of the longer boards. In retrospect, I see that it would have been better to spend $12.99 each on their composite boards which come pre-cut to 44.5" so the finished length of a plank with brackets attached is 48" from peg center to peg center. I could have done the whole project without bothering Scooter. I really don't think Scooter would feel left out.

Now, Frame-It-All shows all of their raised bed kits set up on what might well be astro-turf in a warehouse. It would be perfectly easy to set up a bed on perfectly flat, even ground. Their directions show setting up the bed with the pegs pointed up, then turn pegs over and pound them in. Than would work for the shorter "stacking joint" model. In the real world, on sloping ground, you want to use the longer "anchor joints" which pegs go 11" into the ground . These also have wide wings on the peg, so one must pound them in place and then put the planks down. What I do is set the plank where it needs to go, then use the stacking joint peg to ream a hole in the ground through the bracket, swing the plank aside, pound the anchor peg in the spot I marked, and replace the plank onto this peg. To add to the complication of this, I have soil stockpiled on my garden beds, so I have to scoop the soil out of the way to start the raised bed walls.

I have a good start now on the first bed, and have plans for another seven beds. This is going to be quite the process. And I am officially missing out on prime growing season here.

 If you are interested, I bought the anchor and stacking joints direct from Scenery Solutions, manufacturers  of Frame-It-All.  In some gardening catalogs they sell for $17 a pair and I bought them for $12 a pair.  Scenery Solutions does not charge shipping on orders of $250 or more.  http://www.frameitall.com/
 

More on Straw Bale Gardening
Apr 10, 2008 | 10:41 AM PST
Tags: straw bale gardening , raised beds , wheat straw , rain barrels

After starting the straw bale gardens and setting up my rain barrels, I found that keeping the soil on top of the straw moist was a challenge, and watering with only the gravity pressure in the water from the barrels took FOREVER.  I tried to mulch with damp shredded newspaper, and that helped.  Before long, the roots of plants invaded the straw massively and it was easier to keep them watered properly. I also installed soaker hoses on most of the beds.  These were attached to overflow ports on the rain barrels.  When it rained too much, excess water would just run out onto the beds.  

 Straw bales worked very well for onions, greens, beans and peas, all of the brassicas, tomatoes, peppers, and squash. Pretty much anything but root crops which need deeper soil, and corn which needs more support than is provided by the bales.

  In my photo gallery you can see one straw bed at the base of the ancient T-bar swing set.  Scooter put that thing in so much cement it is going nowhere, so I am putting it to use as a plant support.  Last year it supported cucumbers.  I did not get a picture, but in July the swing set was not visible.  This year,  pole beans and peas .  Next year, Melons and gourds. 

By season's end, I found that much of the oat straw had broken down.  A few bales of wheat straw I added later fared much better.  I will this year buy wheat straw bales, though they are 50% higher in price, they should last a full two years, so that will be a better value.

 I also bought a little transfer pump to move more water from the rain barrels more quickly.

 We learn as we go!

 

 

What the Snowstorm of 2007 Did
Apr 9, 2008 | 5:32 PM PST
Tags: raised beds , heirlooms , straw bale gardening

 

The weekend of February 24-25 we got slammed.  Ice, snow, wind, we got them all.  Over 1000 power poles snapped in Iowa just west of where we live by 40 miles.  We were among the lucky ones.  We lost power for only 6 1/2 hours.  Others were without power for 10 days.  Everything shut down and even church was cancelled for the weekend.  There was nothing to do but think warm sunny thoughts.  I dreamed of summer and gardening and eating a warm ripe tomato fresh off the vine.  I dreamed of picking my own safely grown vegetables from my own garden in my yard.  Ahhh...

 

What a dream.  In the 20 years we have lived here I have had nothing from my yard but a few herbs and tomatoes.  I have no soil.  I have clay.  Besides clay, I have a smallish suburban yard that is criss-crossed with underground utilities.  We have a storm sewer easement down the west side yard and another across the back, both with buried culverts.  The culvert across the back is under a 10 foot wide low area that is an overflow for the storm sewer system.  In a heavy rain, it becomes a raging river.  No place to grow anything there!  And the sun is not too good as the majority of the yard slopes to the north when south slopes are  preferable. For 20 years I have wished there was a fairly inexpensive way to build up beds and grow things in the yard. during that 20 years I gained weight and developed arthritis, so bending and stooping became difficult, and getting up from the ground is nearly impossible. 

 

In my summer reverie I started surfing for vegetable seed sites.  I wanted to learn about heirloom seeds and their availability.  I wanted to build a library of gardening websites and seed purveyors.  So I was happily surfing through Nichols Garden Nursery's site, http://www.nicholsgardennurse
ry.com/strawbales.htm ,and found the most wonderful idea: You can plant vegetables in 3" of soil on top of straw bales.  Wow.  This would mean the small strip of south facing land north of the sewer overflow would be usable as the straw bales would raise the plants  above the high water mark.  Furthermore, the places where we have utility lines underground would all be usable.  I would not have to dig up grass to start the beds.  I could have an almost instant garden.  Wow, I could even garden that year.   

 

First things first, I spent the rest of the weekend ordering seed.  Tomatoes, peppers, lettuces, chards and kales, beans, peas, cukes and squash, herbs.  I ordered salad mixes of seeds.  Then I thought it would be awfully nice to grow some carrots, radishes and beets, even if it means digging some ground. When I went looking for the recommended wheat straw bales, I found they cost 50% more than oat straw.  We grow precious little wheat in Iowa.  I have been purchasing oat straw from a local garden center for years.  I have not noticed many weed seeds, but this is a concern much more so with oat than wheat straw.  It is also more likely that I will get seeds from perennial weeds in the bales.  But I took the plunge and ordered the bales, 42 of them.

I arranged the bales so the straws ran up and down, with the 36" long sides of the bales touching to form 3'x15' wide rows.  After placing the bale where it will stay for at least two years, the next step is to wet the bales.  This triggers a strong exothermic activity of microbes on the straw.  I covered the bales with black plastic as soon as I wet them to contain the heat for a while in hopes that any weed seeds present will either overheat and die, or be forced into sprouting so I could pull them before the next step.

I found an not too costly portable greenhouse that held 8 flats.  I started to grow plants. I had  a large load of good compost delivered as soon as the piles thawed and could be worked.   That was late April.   As soon as the compost was piled on the hay bale beds, I had plantlets ready to go.  We were eating lettuces and baby bok choy by the second week of May.

It is amazing what an ice storm can achieve!